Page:Language of the Eye.djvu/21

Rh of the rainbow, as ever yielding sweet entertainment to the eye.

The colour which seems to realize most pleasure and satisfaction, is a certain mellow amber colour, as seen in a serene evening sky, which appears expressive of congenial warmth, and favourable to the cultivation of passion. Sunset is the medium between red, which implies the violence of heat, and blue, which expresses coldness. Dante's Inferno explains the horror of this blue light, which generally prevails when the features accumulate a greater degree of shade, and assume a gloomy expression.

Whilst gentle tones of colour dispose to the refined and delicate feelings; and some of the pleasures of life, and even the health of the body depend on the harmonious regulation of the light in which the body moves.

Miss Landon, in the Forget-me-Not, explains this light as seen in water:—

Notwithstanding the enthusiastic endeavours of the ancient masters to exalt the characters of their deities far above human, they were only able to give them features with that contour of beauty which is ever developing itself, in a much higher and more animated degree, in the fashion and countenance of woman. The chief difficulty which the sculptor was ever encountering was in his effort to supply expression, which the light of the living eye can alone yield. The studio of the experienced painter would exhibit many efforts he once made to resist the great teacher of all